Symbolism and colour in illustration- visual culture

Symbolism and colour in illustration

Colours hold significance for people around the world. 
Not only do colours influence emotion, but they also hold meaning in religion and various cultures.

Colour symbolism in art and anthropology refers to the use of colour as a symbol in various cultures. 

There is great diversity in the use of colours and their associations between cultures and even within the same culture in different time periods.

 In fact, the same colour may have very different associations within the same culture at any time. For example, red is often used for stop signs or danger. 
At the same time, red is also frequently used in association with affairs of the heart. 

White variously signifies purity, innocence, wisdom or death. Blue has similarly diverse meanings.

Symbolic representations of religious concepts or articles may include a specific colour with which the concept or object is associated. There is evidence to suggest that colours have been used for this purpose as early as 90,000 BC

Color Symbolism Chart

Symbolist artists used mostly mythological and dream like imagery in their works.
Symbolism in art influenced Art Nouveau style and Les Nabis.
The Nabis were a Symbolist, cult-like group that were creators of a subjective art that was deeply rooted in the soul of the artist.


The Purple Book and The Yellow Book

In the world of illustration Symbolism is portrayed amazingly in The Purple Book: Sensuality and Symbolism in Contemporary Art and Illustration.
 This book is filled with illustrations and creations which explore the idea of fantasy, sensuality and the erotic imagination. 
It represents the human desire's and relationship with dream states, fiction and symbolism.
 The majority of the work in this book is unpublished, personal work and the entry in the book is usually the first print of the work.

 

This book is inspired by The Yellow Book which was published in the 1890's, the colour yellow in this time was seen as sexualised and the colour purple today is seen sensually.

 "The color of The Yellow Book was an appropriate reflection of the 'Yellow Nineties," a decade in which Victorianism was giving way among the fashionable to Regency attitudes and French influences; For yellow was not only the decor of the notorious and dandified pre-Victorian Regency, but also of the allegedly wicked and decadent French novel" (Weintraub, 99).

 Its pages contained a  vareity of writers and artists, particularly women and relative newcomers such as Arnold Bennett, Charlotte Mew, Maurice Baring, who would make their reputations in the coming decades.

The use of colour vastly changes how an image is viewed by the consumer, it can evoke certain feelings and emotions. In the future I plan to pay more attention to the colour I use in my work as it is what really sells an image and can really catch the eye of the consumer.